Nattering
by fanfic n00b
Summary: Lily tries to drag James to a concert over their Easter holidays. He's perfectly willing, but he does have other things on his mind now that they're alone. Fluff. Very light M.


Lily pinned him to the bed. Her ridiculously pink bed in her ridiculously pink bedroom. The walls were incongruously covered in black and red posters of Muggle rock stars in tight pants.

"Hold still," she said.

"I can't help it if my eye keeps twitching," James whinged, although he was in truth very happy to be pressed against a mattress by his girlfriend, no matter the context. She had confiscated his glasses and the world had gone blurry and compact, composed only of an indistinct mass of red hair falling onto his face and the peachy blur of her skin.

"Quit your nattering and be still," she said, smudging dark eyeliner along his lashes. Whatever she was using was slightly scratchy, and it made him blink a lot.

"If you like creepy blokes with eyeliner, why don't you go out with a Slytherin instead?" he muttered.

"I don't like creepy blokes with eyeliner. I like this bloke here," she said, jabbing her finger into his chest. "Look to the left."

He complied, and she continued her ministrations.

"I like your eyes. They're different," she mused aloud.

"Yours are very fetching too, Red."

He tilted his chin up to kiss her, expecting her to squirm away or tell him off, but instead she closed the gap between them and pressed her lips to his. He slid a hand down the length of her spine and she made a soft sound of approval. Encouraged, he continued drawing an imaginary line over the hem of her t-shirt and the back of her wool skirt until he reached the inside of her thigh, where he made a fascinating discovery.

"You lost your pants, love," he said.

"Did I? Shame," she said, and he could hear the smirk in her voice even though her face was out of sight, biting his ear.

"Are you finished painting my face, then?" he asked.

"For now," she said.

"Then I want my glasses back."

"Oh, I thought we were off to a nice start there."

"What? Oh. No. I only meant-"

"I know what you meant."

"Do you?"

"You like to _see_ everything."

"Yeah. I do. There's a load of nice stuff under here," he said, tugging at her shirt.

"Tart," she said.

"Wench."

"Posh twit."

"Love you," he said in a sing-song voice. This had recently become his favorite way to end a round of name-calling.

She snickered, and he smiled as she plucked his glasses from the nightstand and returned them to him.

"I do love you," he said, more seriously, settling his specs into his nose again. Now he could see the glitter on her eyelids, twinkling in the lamplight.

"You do, don't you," she said, with a funny sort of smirk. She was still straddling him, and he rested his hands on her knees, tapping his fingers against her with nervous energy.

"Since I was eleven," he said. "Always and for always."

She made a face – wistful? sad? - and rolled off him. She had not said "I love you" to him before, and he wondered if he had pushed her too far, had forced the issue. Of course, he hoped she would say it eventually, but they had only been going out for two months. And he _had_ made a hash of things for the first six years that he knew her, so he could understand her apprehension.

"Lil? Too much? I can dial back the romance," he said.

"No, don't do that," she said, standing up on the bed and taking down her acoustic guitar from its peg on the wall. She looped the brown leather strap over her shoulder and cradled it in her lap as she sat down beside him.

"You can actually play that thing?" he asked, incredulous.

"Oh, I have many secrets, James Potter," she said, raising her eyebrows and pursing her lips mysteriously. She played a few chords and he huffed with surprise and delight.

"I'm sure you do," he said, as she continued strumming. He thought she must be tuning it, because she was twisting the little knobs at the top, which pulled the strings taut.

"And despite what you and other members of the student body may think-" twang twang twang- "I am not some saintly virgin Madonna or helpless Rapunzel in a tower, either."

"Never said you were. What's a Rapunzel?" he asked eagerly, scooting closer, his knee touching hers.

She looked up and met his eyes. Green into hazel. Water and grass. She stopped tuning.

"Tell you later," she said.

Then she launched into a song he'd heard before, on one of Sirius' records, her fingers flying across the frets, and she sang. The acoustics were imperfect in her tiny suburban bedroom with its lacy pink curtains and frilly bedspread, and her voice was ever-so-slightly off-key, but he thought, nonetheless, that this was the most exquisite sound in the world.

He ran his hand through his hair absent-mindedly as he watched her. She became less off-key as she reached the second verse.

Then he caught her meaning in the refrain. It was her way of returning his "I love you." She was _singing_ I love you. She was singing that she loved _him_.

When she finished, she set her guitar on the floor and looked up at him, lip trembling, uncertain, vulnerable. He grabbed her shoulders and kissed her, translating his reassurances into soft movements of lips and tongue. He felt her relax.

"Was that Queen?" he asked softly, breathing against her cheek.

"Yep," she said. "Pleased to see Padfoot has expanded your musical horizons."

"Fuck, Lil. You've trumped all of my romantic gestures in one fell swoop."

"All out of tricks, now, are you?" she asked, the tip of her nose nuzzling up against his chin.

"Quite possibly."

"Oh, I hope not. Let it not be said that Lily Evans tamed the inveterate prankster James Potter."

"Tamed? Never," he said. And to prove it, he threaded his fingers through hers and pushed her down onto the mattress, painting her with ravenous kisses. She sighed, and he could hear contentment and arousal in it, as well as a hint of complaint.

"We're not going to make it to this concert, are we?" she asked.

"Hmm. It's looking doubtful at this point. A very pretty witch lost her pants, you see, and I'm ever so eager to assist her," he said.

She moaned softly as he lifted her skirt with one hand. "No, no. We have to go," she said. "I'm dying to go. And I've spent so much time making you look glam. And these tickets aren't exactly ten a knut."

He groaned.

"Alright, alright," she said. "Quick one, then we _Apparate_ to Manchester straightaway. Agree?"

"Yes, yes, a thousand times yes," he said, already halfway out of his trousers.

He pressed his nose against hers and looked into her eyes. He could feel her casting a couple of nonverbal contraceptive charms with her freed hand. What a clever witch.

"You love me," he said.

"Yep," she said, smiling up at him.

"You love me," he repeated, louder.

"Yes. What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong," he said. "Nothing can ever, ever be wrong again."

"Hmm. Objectively untrue. But a very nice sentiment nonetheless," she said.

Then she crossed her ankles behind his back and pulled him down to her, and he did not protest again.


End file.
